I’m back! Well, I was never away. Of course the usual excuses follow: school, work, husband returning from Iraq, moving, etc. Although I’ve been away I haven’t stopped living or loving life! I was excited to get my report that I had over 1,500 views on my blog in December! In January my husband, Todd, decided he wanted to do a detox/liver/colon cleanse with me. He made the decision to eat as healthy as possible along with the cleanse. Really??? Yes. This came from an all-american he-man-woman-hating cheese-burger beer guzzling(sometimes) normal young army guy. At this announcement I was both nervous and excited. Pictures of food spewing out of his mouth, faces or comments about the food, or him losing so much weight he looked like he came from a concentration camp ran through my head. At the same time of course I want the love of my life to experience his optimal healthy body. After everything settled down in January we began our “Todd eats mostly raw and healthy stuff a lot for at least 30 days”. Too long of a title? The first few days were shaky. I was working and Todd ran in and asked if a vanilla milkshake was raw. He used his big blue puppy dog eyes and explained he was REALLY craving one. But alas, as a health food enthusiast, I could not succumb to such trickery. I did however make him a shake at home as soon as I got the chance. Not your McDonalds hydrogenated-oil, high fructose corn syrup, fractioned milk goo, but delicious nonetheless.

I Need a Vanilla Milkshake! recipe:

1 frozen banana

1/2 scoop raw protein powder or Vega Shake and Go smoothie

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 tablespoon raw agave nectar or honey or 1 teaspoon stevia powder

1 cup almond milk (creamier) or water

Ice as needed

Directions:

Throw everything in the blender as fast as possible. Add ice as needed and according to textural desire(nice phrase!) Then quickly put it in a cup and savor to kick that milkshake craving in the a**!

We live a very busy lifestyle with friends, family, school, and work. We run into a variety of scenarios, many of which involve food. Wait, that’s every American. Hmm. So because we happen to be normal people we also happen to be imperfect. Neither of us aspire to be perfect, we just try to do our best at that moment, on that day, in that year. We don’t live by rules or dogmatic thinking, and we certainly don’t push our goals onto other people. So, we do enjoy the occasional drink, steak (especially Todd), and sushi. Because of Todd’s high protein needs we found it easiest for him to still incorporate meat into his diet. There are many recipes however that require no cow’s that he likes quite a bit.

Todd’s Tacos.He calls them tacos…there not…there burritos more or less….and he scares people when he says “Oh you should come over and try our raw tacos!” Response”Whaaaat? Raw taco meat???” Pictures of Todd biting into bloody, ground up, hamburger meat are running through there head, I’m sure. (Sorry to be so graphic?) Anyways, heres the recipe:

Taco Meat:

1 cup raw soaked walnuts (no other nut will do…okay maybe…but it won’t be as good.)

With the texture of taco meat in mind process all ingredients in food processor. You don’t want it too crunchy or too mushy. Carefully add the water, as you don’t want too much. Taste as you go along to get the desired flavor. Feel free to add a variety of spices.

Raw Cheddar Cheese Directions:

Blend everything together. The amount of water will depend on the thickness or thinness of cheese desired.

Raw Sour Cream:Process everything. It gives that bite. It might not taste like sour cream by itself, but when combined with other flavors it provides that sour your looking for. You might want to add more or less vinegar.

Tomatillo Salsa Directions:

Sometimes I chop it all up by hand, sometimes I use a food processor. It depends on how lazy I am or am not feeling, or if I just want a variety of “chop” sizes. I’ve been none to add red bell pepper to the mix as well.

Todd likes it this way:Take one Food for Life Ezekiel Tortilla (made with sprouted grains and cooked at a low temperature)Spread a good amount of cheese. Follow with taco meat. Add spinach or lettuce and salsa. Top with sour cream. Fold it up into a burrito, but refuse to call it a BURRITO and always persistently and determinately refer to it as a TACO.I enjoy it this way, or if I’m wanting something light (and grain-less) it’s delicious as a “taco salad”. Just sprinkle everything atop of bed of spinach or lettuce of choice. Yum.

Raw Taco Salad

I have so many more recipes too share! Let me know if you have any special requests or questions! I might answer. ; ) Renee

Ah, today the weather is so nice. It makes my little inner hippie heart want to throw on a yellow dress and dance in the daffodils. But alas, I was stuck inside writing a paper. : P Anyways, a couple of weeks ago I held my first raw food potluck. Lovely people and lovely food. I promised to put up some pictures of the delicious food, along with some recipes. First, I made lasagna, which I’ve already posted the recipe for. This time though, I did the cheese a little bit different, so here it is:

FOR ZUCCHINI STRIPS
2 long and thick zucchini , peeled, and sliced into thin, wide strips with a peeler or mandoline
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 dash celtic salt
FOR THE MUSHROOMS
any olive oil left from the zucchini mix, and more if needed
nama shoyu
1 cup portabella mushroom caps, sliced into thin, wide and long slices
OTHER INGREDIENTS
2 big tomato, sliced into thin, wide slices
1 cup spinach, coated very lightly in any of the extra marinade from the mushrooms and chopped

Preparation:

1. To make the cashew cheez:
-Process the soaked cashews, lemon juice, lemon zest, nutritional yeast, celtic sea salt, onion, and herbs. The measurements are just approximate, so taste as you go, it should taste yummy like ravioli cheese. It should have a ricotta-cheesey texture, so add more lemon juice or water if needed.
2. To make the zucchini layers, coat the thin and wide zucchini strips with the olive oil and salt so they are coated but NOT dripping. Set aside, and reserve any extra olive oil and salt mix you have left for the mushrooms.
3. To make the mushrooms, coat the thinly sliced portabella caps in the EVOO and nama shoyu mixture, again so they are coated but NOT dripping.
4. Coat the baby spinach VERY lightly in any of the leftover marinade from the mushrooms.
5.TIME TO ASSEMBLE!! Arrange the layers like so: zucchini (slightly overlapping), cheez, tomato slices, mushrooms, spinach, and repeat. do this so its as tall as you like, and coat the top layer of zucchini with some more cheez and tomato.
6. Dehydrate at 130 degrees for an hour (this will not destroy enzymes because of the moisture content of the food at this stage), and then at 110-115 for another half hour to an hoour or so.
7. ENJOY!!!!

Soak Flax seeds in a pint glass filed with water for 30 minutes before using.

While they’re soaking, process the Onions (quartered) in your Food Processor (FP) with the finest (smallest) slicing blade. (not the chopping/normal ‘S’ blade). Should make long thin strips/slices of onions. (Julienne) Set aside in very, very large bowl.

Change your FP blade to the finest grating blade you have and process the Carrots. Add to the bowl with the sliced Onions.

If soak time has passed. Put soaked Flax Seeds and the soak Water into your Blender. Refill the pint glass with water and add that water to blender also. Blend for just a bit, it will become a thick gel/cream with a few whole flax seeds and bits of all sizes.

Pour Flax cream blend into bowl with Onions and Carrots. Add the Olive Oil and the Salt. Stir very well with large spoon. Allow to sit for 5 to 10 minutes. While waiting cover 3 Excalibur dehydrator trays with cling film or use teflex sheets.

Divide your mixture evenly between the 3 trays and spread out evenly on each one, just less than a half inch thick. Place into Dehydrator and run until dried well on top. Flip onto normal uncovered trays and continue to dehydrate until almost crispy. It’s best to cut it about two hours after you flip it before it gets too crispy.

As an option, try stopping one tray before it dries all the way and leave those squares more flexible.

These cookies are just…yuuum. Decadent? Yes. Rich? Yes. A little on the heavy side? Yes. Overindulgent? Yes. Time consuming? Yes. Worth it? Yes! So I looked over a couple of different raw “samoa” recipes and kind of combined them. Here’s what happened:

For the cookie:

1 cup of almonds or cashews ground into a meal ( I used a coffee grinder, if you use cashews the cookie will turn out much softer, but will still be delicious)

1 cup of raisins or date, soaked

1 cup of shredded coconut, ground into a meal (I used a coffee grinder)

So you’ll want to start with the cookie first, because it takes the longest.

The Cookie Directions:

Combine almond meal and coconut in a food processor. Add maple syrup, dates, vanilla and sea salt, and process until it forms a ball of dough.

Flatten the dough into a sheet and cut out cookie-sized circles. To maintain authenticity, you can also cut a smaller circle out of the middle to make its familiar donut-like shape (donuts? Yum! I have such a sweet-tooth. Now, I’m getting off topic). OR you can take small pieces of doll, roll into a “snake” and the join the two ends together to form a circle. Flatten gently.

“Bake” the cookies in the dehydrator, flipping once, until crisp (I left mine in there for almost 24 hours).

The “Raw Condensed Milk” Directions:

Soak the flaxseed in the water overnight.

Blend at high speed in the blender until the mixture is ‘fluffy’ and frothy. Very, very slowly add the agave nectar. Add the sea salt, coconut, and vanilla and continue to blend until mixture is very smooth and creamy looking.

Pour mixture into a shallow dish and place in the dehydrator.

Dehydrate at 115 degrees for at least three hours, or until desired consistency is reached.

Use in recipes or continue to dehydrate to make ‘dulce de leche’

The Topping, Part II Directions:

Stir the dried coconut into the “raw condensed milk”.

Chocolate Directions:

Stir together coconut oil, cacao, and agave until smooth and melted.

Putting it all together Directions(Time for all these scrumptious desserts to get to know each other):

First, take the cookie and dip the bottom into the Chocolate dip. Set cookies, bottom side up into the freezer for a few minutes. The chocolate should become solid quickly.

Remove the cookies from the freezer and top each cookie generously with the coconut topping.

Drizzle remaining chocolate dip over coconut topping.

Place in freezer or fridge. Keep in until ready to serve. Yum!

Some other delicious dishes we had at the raw food potluck:

Raw Wraps with a “chicken” salad and veggies. So good!

A lovely and refreshing Cucumber and Radish Dip

There were deliciiiiiious Popsicles and “fudgesicles”, but I guess we were all in such a hurry to eat them I didn’t get a picture!

I still have a lot more recipes to share.

My sister is on her 7th day of following a 100% raw diet. She said so far, it hasn’t been as hard as she thought at all. We talked a little bit about “detoxing” which can be anything from a headache, to stomach ache. Maybe I’ll touch on that in a post some time. This usually only last about a week at the most. She hasn’t had any real symptoms so far. : D

I’m off to talk to my wonderful hubby on webcam from Iraq!

Enjoy life!

Renee

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